Authorization & Capture

Overview

Authorization and capture enables you to authorize fund availability but delay fund capture. This can be useful for merchants who have a delayed order fulfillment process. Authorize & Capture also enables merchants to change the original authorization amount in case the order changes due to shipping, taxes, or gratuity.

An authorization places a hold on the funds and is valid for 29 days. After a successful authorization, PayPal recommends that you capture the funds within the three-day honor period. Success of the capture is subject to risk and availability of funds on the authorized funding instrument. Within the 29-day authorization period, you can issue multiple re-authorizations after the honor period expires. A re-authorization generates a new Authorization ID and restarts the honor period, and any subsequent capture should be performed on the new Authorization ID. If you do a re-authorization on the 27th day of the authorization, you get only two days of honor period.

Within a 29-day authorization period, you can issue multiple reauthorizations after the initial three-day honor period expires.

Day

Action

Authorization period

Honor period

1

Authorization-1

Begins 29-day authorization period

Days 1 through 3

4

Reauthorization-1 on Authorization-1

Within 29-day authorization period

Days 4 through 7

8

Reauthorization-2 on Authorization-1

Within 29-day authorization period

Days 8 through 11

For any payment type, you can capture less than or the full original authorized amount. You can also capture up to 115% of or $75 USD more than the original authorized amount, whichever is less.

You can also complete partial captures during a single authorization period. For PayPal payment authorizations, you must enable this feature on your PayPal account.

Note:

Customers and merchants cannot close accounts that have authorized but not yet captured payments.

You can also authorize payments for orders, which confirms the availability of funds but does not place the funds on hold.

Types of authorizations

You can make two types of authorizations, basic authorizations and order authorizations.

Basic authorizations

Basic authorizations place the customer's funds on hold for up to 29 days. During this time, you can capture, void, or reauthorize the funds. You can reauthorize a transaction only once. You can reauthorize it for up to 115% of the originally authorized amount or an increase of $75 USD (whichever is the lesser amount).

You can capture NVP/SOAP and void NVP/SOAP basic authorizations through the APIs or by logging in to your PayPal account and using the web interface.

Orders and order authorizations

Creating a PayPal Order indicates that the buyer has consented to the purchase but does not place the funds on hold. After creating the Order, you can capture the order directly without any additional authorization, or you can create an authorization API call to place funds on hold until you are ready to capture. Since the order does not place funds on hold, it is advised that you follow the second approach and create an authorization instead of capturing an Order directly.

This technique is often used by merchants who accept orders for varying items, some of which may not be available for shipment at the time the order is placed. Subsequent basic authorizations are made as the items become available. These authorizations ensure the customer still has the funds available to purchase each item. You can make up to 10 basic authorizations for each Order. If your account allows only a limited number of authorizations per Order, contact PayPal Customer Support to configure your account to allow up to 99 basic authorizations for each Order.

An order is valid for 29 days. Within this period, you can request one or many authorizations to ensure the availably of funds. The sum of the total open authorizations can’t exceed 115% or $75 (whichever is less) of the amount provided to PayPal when the order was created.

After you have created authorizations, you can capture, void, or reauthorize the transaction using the PayPal API. You can capture or void authorizations from the PayPal website.

You must capture and void orders and order authorizations with the Authorization and Capture APIs. You cannot process order authorizations through the PayPal website. The PayPal website only supports processing basic authorizations, not order authorizations.